New Year....same old me.

Here we stand on the threshold of another brand new year.  Some of us look at what is ahead with fear, after all the Aztecs didn’t bother to add any more time to their calendar after 2012.  Some of are full of hope, hence all the cherry cheeked presidential candidates.   Some of us will march fearlessly into the New Year with a list of personal changes tucked firmly under our arms.  Ladies and Gentlemen….I give you the dreaded New Year’s resolution.

Like every adult in the U.S.A. I’ve made more than my share of them, and my New Year’s resolutions have included but are not limited to:

I will lose ten pounds (or twenty or fifty)

I will stop smoking (which I did without the help of a New Year’s resolution)

I will be more patient (generous, tolerant, attentive, etc)

I will work harder (or not as hard)

I will learn to ski (or roller skate, or sing, or play the harmonica or something)

I will stop swearing (cough)

I will spend more time with (someone who drives me nuts and I avoid 364 days each year)

You get the picture, because just like every other dissatisfied adult in America you’ve made them, too.

Having shared that list with you I have an important announcement to make:

   I DO NOT have any New Year’s resolutions.   Not one….nada….zip….zilch.

I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you it’s because I believe I’ve reached perfection.  I only know that I am going into the New Year with one thought…..I am enough.   Perhaps this epiphany has come to me in the form of wisdom at this later stage of life, or perhaps it’s just fatigue, but it’s what I know.  

New Year’s resolutions are a search for perfection after we have compared ourselves to others and have been found wanting.   Over the years I’ve gotten past that and I’ve given myself permission to be who I am: a woman aware of her shortcomings and quite comfortable with them, thank you very much.  After wishing to be taller, smarter, more attractive or to define my talents, I have finally come to this understanding:  I can wear high heels to feel taller, I can read more to learn more, I can comb my hair more often, and I can admire other people’s talents….but I am what I am.

Over the years I’ve come to the gradual realization that I am “hard wired” in some areas of my personality, and my belief system has evolved through my life experiences.    I think I have always tried to be the best “me” possible, but trying to be someone I am not is a waste of my gradually diminishing energy.

Who wants to be perfect anyway?  The Kardashians are perfectly famous.  Lindsay Lohan is perfectly beautiful.  Donald Trump is perfectly rich.  Casey Anthony is perfectly free.    I wouldn’t want to trade places with any of them….would you?

I know I’m flying in the face of tradition here, but I think you should join me this year in my “no change…no way” mind set.   Check your emotional “basement” to make sure the foundation is secure, and then forget about it.  Maybe we’re not perfect, but then what is?       

                                          Be who you are….because you are enough.

                                                   Happy New Year... Life is good. 

                                               

The Joy of Socks........

  

 When you look around you at all the mysterious things in this world my question might not seem so important.   After all…we will never know how they built the pyramids, or what Stone Henge is really all about.  I question whether we’ll ever understand why we are born, age and die.   Those things are for bigger minds than ours.  I can live with that.

   BUT DO YOU THINK SOMEONE COULD FIGURE OUT WHERE SOCKS GO WHEN YOU PUT

                                                                      THEM      

                                                 IN THE DOGGONED WASHER????????? 

My husband and I have been together for a lot of years.   We have raised three beautiful children into adulthood, and now they are raising their own families.   But when they lived at home not one of us was ever be able to figure out where a lifetime of family socks went.

At one point we had in our basement laundry room a basket that any snake charmer would have envied.  It was three feet tall and round, made of some exotic natural reed woven by a bare skinned native woman in a country far, far way.    I purchased it at World Market for over ten thousand times what that bare skinned basket weaver was paid, and I brought it to my nice cool basement to solve the mystery of the socks.

My plan was this:  Each child/adult would take his or her pair of socks and force the toes of the pair through a brightly colored plastic ring.  These had been carefully selected, along with the beautiful basket, to hold two socks together in the wash, guaranteeing matching socks for our family of five.  I was in the middle of this organizational binge after being unable to find socks for school one morning, and the result was my daughter had to go to gym class with taupe knee highs rolled down into her gym shoes.

After frantically searching through hundreds of mismatched socks that I could swear I had never seen before, I sank to my knees on the basement floor (Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind) and proclaimed, “I swear we’ll never go sockless again.” 

And so, for years we filled that basket with socks.  The plastic rings only lasted through two wash days, and then they too disappeared.   About once a month I’d dig down a foot or so into the basket and match up enough socks to keep Children’s Services satisfied, but I never found a system to put two matching socks into the washer and remove two matching socks from the dryer.   

So……where do they go?  I estimate over the twenty years of raising three kids, a husband with dress socks, me with knee highs and golf socks, we have shelled out ten thousand dollars in sock money….easy.

It’s not like I threw them away, I swear!  Many years after I bought the beautiful basket we got a new puppy, and when she took it upon herself to consume the bottom row of basket weave we found baby socks!   My kids were teenagers at the time, so these socks were obviously reappearing in this dimension from a parallel world.

I thought maybe the kids were trying to “gaslight” me for a while, but when they grew up and moved out the trend continued.   The long ago basket has been replaced several times, but all the containers seem to be home to a vortex into that same parallel world that only one sock at a time is permitted to enter. 

I may not know much about the Druids or space aliens or the canals on Mars, but this I do know...somewhere there is a graveyard that holds mismatched socks, paper clips and hair bands.  It belongs to no one, but everyone contributes.  It is more difficult to find than the Lost Dutchman’s Mine….but someday, someone will find it!    Then, maybe we’ll have the answer to the age old question:  “Have you seen my socks?”        

                                                            Life is good. 

            

..........and to all a good night

           If you’re very lucky you have some wonderful Christmas memories.   I am very lucky.

My Mom, Dad and I always went to my grandparent’s house in Kentucky for Christmas.   As  little girls my cousin, Theresa, and I loved to crawl under the live Christmas tree, lie on our backs and look up through the branches at the bubble lights.  I thought they were the most beautiful things, and I still find those lights mesmerizing.  (note to self: shop the after Christmas sales for some bubble lights!) 

I think I must have been nine or ten the year I so desperately wanted a record player for Christmas.  I had a small one as a very little girl, and I had one record for it.   “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” was the song, and I can hear it to this day. 

At my grandmother’s house that year there was one box under the tree that was big enough to hold my dream gift, and I begged for clues from my Mother.   “Just tell me the first letter, just the first letter,” I begged.   My Mom thought a while and said….”Okay…the letter is P.”   I was crestfallen.   I wanted a RECORD PLAYER.   That Christmas morning I tore into the gifts.   The first, and largest, box I opened held a grey suitcase record player.   My Mom laughed as she introduced me to a new word… “phonograph”.   It was my treasure, as was the first 45 single I bought, “Wake up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers.  

I think it was at Smarts Records on Main Street back then, when you bought 12 records they gave you the 13^th free.   Each week my Dad would let me pick out a record for 48 cents.   I became the proud owner of a punch card, and every week I would present it to the clerk so he could punch another hole in it that put me ever closer to the cherished number 12.   All week I would count the holes, then recount as if another might have magically appeared.   I still have some of those old 45’s with my name scrawled in a childish hand, all part and parcel of that special Christmas.

I’ve had a lot of Christmas gifts since that year, but none sticks in my mind quite as clearly as that phonograph.   After that year it seems that my memories jump forward to putting together bicycles, tiny tin kitchen appliances, wrapping gifts till the wee hours and stuffing stockings for my own children.   Those pre-Christmas evenings began with bathing three excited, wiggly little ones; working to get them stuffed into pajamas and tucked into bed.  While I herded the kids, Larry would start the process of deciphering toy assembly instructions, breathing a silent prayer that all the pieces were in the boxes. 

There’s nothing to prepare you for Christmas Day like advanced Christmas construction that keeps you up half the night.   Our kids were all pre-dawn Christmas celebrators.   I seemed as if I had no more than just closed my eyes (nearly crossed from trying to fit tiny screws into holes that didn’t mesh for a minimum of four hours) than the bed would explode into motion with three little ones squealing, “Mommy!…Daddy!.....Santa was here!!!   Get up…call Nanny and Grandpa!!!”    We would call my parents at some ungodly hour, and they would come over to watch the kids open their gifts.   Dad would unload another car full of packages while the kids danced and chattered with excitement.    It really didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night, we four adults sat drinking coffee while the kids ripped and shredded everything in sight. 

After the unwrapping carnage ended, Dad was always the first one to grab a garbage bag and start picking up ribbon and paper and torn boxes.   It was “his job” every Christmas, and the first year after his death none of us quite knew what to do; no one had the heart to be the one to pick up a bag and start cleaning up.    Somehow we got the job done, but we all knew that none of us is quite as good at it as my Pop was.

Our Christmas celebrations have certainly changed.  My Mom still bakes her pumpkin cake her grandchildren love, but our children have become beautiful adults.   They are loving and thoughtful, giving of their time and strength to friends and family all year long.  Our own seven grandchildren are growing tall and strong.  Everything has changed but the love, and that is the true gift to all of us this Christmas.   Looking around me on Christmas Day I am thankful for each one as they open gifts, laughing, teasing and enjoying each other’s company. 

Oh, my yes……Life is Good.

 

         

The Golden Girls

My grandmother always told me that the older you get, the faster time goes.  At the time I thought that was impossible, but now I know that, like most things she told me, she was right.  Another year has come and gone and this evening marked a yearly event that I always look forward to......the Golden Girl's Christmas party at my house.

A lot of years ago I dubbed the four of us the "golden girls".   We four old friends met for dinner at my house one summer evening when everyone was in town.  At the time two of us were living in town, one in Florida and one in Phoenix.  My husband snapped our picture to mark the event.   Later, when I was looking for a card to tuck a picture into for each of them, I came upon cards with the "Golden Girls" on them; we've been the golden girls ever since.  

These are women I've known since girlhood.  We all grew up in the north end of Mansfield, went to Mansfield Senior High School, married about the same time.  For the most part we swooned over the same neighborhood boys, went to the Friendly House dances, and shared the same growing pains.   Now, all these years later, several husbands have come and gone, kids have grown up and provided us with beautiful grandchildren, we've comforted one another through the loss of parents, loss of siblings, and the loss of a child.

   

Once a month I count on the counsel and support of these three special friends of mine.  We share our complaints, our triumphs and our tragedies over angel hair pasta and iced tea.  More importantly we share our memories.   These are three faces that always light up at the site of the fourth coming through the door, always looking forward to hearing what each of us has been up to.  These are the golden girls.

Ours is not an intrusive friendship.  In between these monthly dinners we seldom see one another, and except for the occasional email or phone call we usually don't talk in between.  But in a way I think that's what makes our monthly meal a special time to catch up and renew our friendship.  The fact that we are not on the phone every day doesn't detract from the knowledge that if any of us needs the others, we will all be there in a heartbeat.

                                                                     Golden Girls
                                 Ellen Matthews    Diana Coon     Chris Butler      Becky Myers
                                                                   Molly the wonder dog



And so this evening we shared a "retro dinner" at my house, right out of 1965, with subs from the Leaning Tower, Jones Potato Chips, and Pepsi.  We exchanged gifts and stories and laughter; four women who are in touch with their shortcomings, and celebrating their strengths.  These are women as individual as snowflakes, and I love each of them dearly.

It seems to me that it was just a few months ago that the four of us were wearing bobby socks and wrapping our boyfriends class rings with angora yarn....talking about Fabian and wondering if Ricky Nelson would sing in the weekly episode of Ozzie and Harriett.   The time has gone by at a decidedly faster clip as I've aged, just as my Grandmother said it would.  I cannot hold time back, but I can hold my friendships and my family dear and try to remind myself to be grateful for every moment.

Christmas has always been the stake in the ground that marks the passage of my life.  For some reason it’s an emotional season, where losses are harder and gains are greater.  It makes me understand that one of the greatest gifts anyone can receive is an evening with old friends, and the hope of many more.
Merry Christmas, my friends……….Life is good.

Nothing is constant but change for the holidays.

I seem to have done it again.  I really hate being predictable, but as crazy as it seems, I am.   Here we are at the holidays, one week to the day from Christmas Day.   Am I content to shop, bake, wrap, and mail Christmas cards?   Oh no, not me.

Just as I have done so many times in the past I found myself in the middle of a remodeling/redecorating project.   It's almost as if, somewhere in the middle of my tiny brain, there is a circuit that shorts out when the holidays get closer.  There is the smell of burning plastic, the arcing of hot wires....and the next thing I know there are workemen in my house and an impossible delivery date for furniture....or something.

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By five p.m. on Friday...just two short days ago, there were men exiting my house who were covered in dry wall dust.  They'd been busy carrying out the plan I'd made with the contractor just two days before,  two days of tearing out a door, drywalling a wall, then taping and mudding and smoothing.  Before I knew it they were gone, and I had no idea if they were going to show up on Saturday (isn't that overtime?) or wait til Monday (six days and counting from Christmas) to finish the wall, paint, and replace woodwork.  And that, of course, is when my own work really starts to get the room cleaned and together for our family gathering.

How does this happen?  One year I ripped the paper off the dining room walls two days before Christmas...another year I washed up after Thanksgiving in a "temporary" kitchen because the new countertop had arrived cut to someone else's measurements.  I've had holidays with no furniture....no kitchen....a "barely made it to the finishline" bathroom and other projects too numerous to mention.  My plans never leave any room for error, and they push the abilities of mere mortals to the breaking point. 

It's not as if the holidays aren't stressful enough...and even when I was managing a dozen radio stations I followed the same pattern.  I guess my sub conscious mind just says, "Hey!!   Let's see if we can bring this body to it's knees!"

It's not as if I didn't start the search for furniture at a good time...but even though the first furniture (which I never got) was purchaed the first week in September, the continuing saga is only finished today.

So....the workman showed up yesterday and did an outstanding job on finishing the wall.  I am now happily minus one door, I have a freshly painted wall, new furniture, and it took me half a day to clean up the white dust that covered everything like a tracking snow. 

I love our new family room.  Even though I tend to be color phobic, I chose a warm pumpkin color for the wall, and the room feels warmer and cozier.  The furniture (which my husband ultimately selected, by the way) is very comfy and we have plenty of wall space for a real couch, thanks to the nice young man who worked so hard to make the door disappear.

And so....it's "the holidays".  There's one sure way to tell...you can look at a calendar, your phone, or your computer......OR you can come by my house and look at the mess and you'll know the holidays can't be more than a week away.

The first step toward order is disorder, and finally everything is in order for the holidays.  My holiday tradition is this...the paint is dry and the food is hot....HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

 Life is Good.

What goes around comes around....finding a happy memory.

I got an early Christmas gift today.   While cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen, working ever so slowly toward that de-cluttering of my life I’ve talked about, I discovered my gold fox head ring!    

Several months ago I rubbed my thumb on my left index finger, just as I’ve done for so many years, and my ring was gone.   It’s just one of those long standing habits you develop, and I was startled to find it was not there….I didn’t remember taking it off, but it was just gone. 

I bought the ring in August of 1991 as a reward for accomplishing a big goal, and to mark the event.  The year before I had been granted the gift of building the carousel in downtown Mansfield.   It was the most abstract job I’d ever tackled, and one of the most rewarding.   Always in love with the downtown, I was thrilled to be the first director of the project.  There was no real game plan, there was no instruction manual.   Basically I got a job title, the carousel building and a brown desk phone that sat on the cement floor.   I was now officially the person who would answer it.

At the time I walked into that building as the director the whole carousel project was very controversial.   I got the call on a Sunday that I had the job, and my husband and I had a cook out to go to that evening before it had even been announced.    I was talking to someone at that gathering when I heard the man behind me say, “I just saw the funniest bumper sticker.  It said, ‘Last one out of Mansfield, Turn off the Lights off on the Carousel’. “   I turned to meet him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I’d like to introduce myself.  I’m Diana Coon and I’ll be turning off the lights on the carousel.”   He proceeded to tell me why it would never get built, and why I should start looking for another job… pronto.

I listened, not at all sure that he might not have a point, and I told him I’d give him the first ride on that carousel when I got it built.   Eventually he got that ride, and he was such a good sport he wrote me a check for $500.00 to support the project.    

I did a lot of talking to groups during that time, trying to change opinions and gain support.  In one  such speech, I talked about my wish to see rocking chairs around the carousel for people to sit in to watch the children, listen to the music, or just relax.   Someone from the telephone company, Sprint at that time, called me and said they wanted to raise the money for the chairs.   Through 'dress down Fridays' and bake sales and donations, they did.   I had brass plaques put on the rockers to acknowledge the groups contribution.  The chairs are still there today, and I sat in one, rocking my granddaughter, not long ago.   I'm sorry to say I simply don’t remember the names of all the people who were so kind and worked so hard to make the Carrousel Park the place it is today, but I’ve never forgotten one of their faces or what they did to help.  

 Since this was the first hand carved wooden carousel to go up in the country in the last sixty years, it wasn’t possible to pick up the phone to ask someone, “So what did you do when you built YOUR carousel?”  I haunted the library for several weeks, putting together an idea of what I thought needed to be done.  I talked to everyone who would talk to me, and gratefully accepted all the help I could get.  Through books from the library I discovered the old carousels had used tokens, and  I wanted Richland Carrousel Park to have them too.  Eventually I found out who manufactured the tokens for the New York City subway system, and they did the original tokens for our carousel.    It was a wide open challenge, and I loved every minute of it.

So, it was twenty years ago this summer that I bought this ring.   It marked the completion of the carousel project for me, and every time I look at it I am reminded of that time and how proud I was at that grand opening.  It was a lot of very hard work, and my husband and children supported me every step of the way. 

All these years later the carousel that no one thought would last is still going round and round.   I love being downtown in the summer when the doors are up and the happy, tinkling music fills the air.   I remember the day that organ was installed, and the day the center pole went up,  the work crew who built it, and the challenges that so many people met to get it completed.  

And so, my early Christmas gift was finding this ring today, long after I had accepted the fact that it was gone.    I’m delighted to have it back on my left index finger where it belongs, and I am thankful for the happy memories it carries.  I also know I am a very lucky woman to have both…….Life is Good.

   

     

Somebody is walking on my grave

My husband, Larry, and I have been fortunate to have been able to do some traveling.  We’ve been to England a couple of times, to the Netherlands; we’ve walked the Champs Elysees and looked over Paris from the Eiffel Tower.   I have some wonderful memories of trips we’ve taken.

To say I am a frustrated photographer would be an understatement.   I imagine I’ve taken about a gazillion pictures in my time.  Now that you don’t have to wait to have them developed and pay to throw three quarters of them away, I like it even more.

Two of my gazillion pictures stand out because they are unusual and they were taken on two different continents.

One of my favorite places to visit as we travel is the local graveyard.   Every culture treats death differently, and every tomb or stone or slab is a mini history lesson.  I’ve traipsed through graveyards all over the world.

We were in Paris, staying in a hotel that had a wonderful view from rooms that were not much larger than a telephone booth.  Needless to say we saw a lot of Paris just to stay out of that room.

In our wandering around we discovered that a block from the hotel there was a huge cemetery, right in the center of Paris.  We strolled through it, admiring the tombs and monuments and commenting on how different this site was from the American counterparts.

As we walked and talked I noticed over in a shady corner, stretched out on a big stone slab in the only shaft of sunlight in that whole area, was a large black cat.  The tomb resembled a four poster bed of stone, and although it may have been macabre I found it intriguing, so I snapped the picture.   The cat bounded away and I wasn’t certain I’d gotten the shot.   Since I was using film, I had to wait until we got back to the States and developed the film to see that it was a very good shot.   Well….if you appreciate graveyards it was a very good shot.

Several years later we were in New Orleans.  We took the trolley to the Garden District so we could walk through Lafayette Cemetery.  New Orleans is famous for ghost stories, Voo Doo princesses, and folk lore.  I didn’t want to miss this notorious cemetery…

Walking through the beautiful Garden District we admired the stately old homes, the riot of colorful flowers, and then we came to the cemetery surrounded by, what appeared to be, an ancient stone wall.   We found the entrance and as we walked through the big Iron Gate Larry quipped, “Would you like me to conjure up another black cat for you?”   I laughed as we rounded a corner and viola’……there it was.   Another big, black cat was lazing in the sun on a crypt.   He didn’t seem to pay much attention to us as I took several photos, but when I finished, the cat got up from his resting place and came directly to me.  He stayed right by my side as we walked through the rest of the cemetery, rubbing against me and twining himself through my legs as if in appreciation for having his picture taken.  Finally I sat on a bench in the sunshine, stroking him and talking to him as he looked me straight in the eye without any shyness at all.

We stayed longer than we had planned walking around the small cemetery a couple of times just because the black cat seemed to enjoy having some company.  As we exited he walked us to the gate, where he stopped as if he’d been trained not to leave the place.  He turned and walked back into the labyrinth of crypts and stones as we walked down the street.

Later that day we recounted meeting the black cat in the cemetery to the desk clerk at the hotel. "Oh, that's Tom.  He's like the tour guide there, been around since anyone can remember,"  he said.

The black cat pictures are matted and framed and they hang in our hallway.  They're my two favorite travel photos, and I have to admit that every time we travel, every time we stroll through a graveyard, we both have our eyes peeled for another black cat on a grave.   I guess you could say it's become our unusual vacation tradition........life is good. 

Do NOT click that.......it's a trick!!

                                       

I have begun the daunting task of trimming down the amount of email I receive on a daily basis.   As I looked at the enormous amount of clutter I get each and every day, I realized there are three stages of computer “user-ship”.  

First Stage

  When you get your first computer you experience the rush of excitement one gets when she realizes the internet is stretched out before you….open to your exploration and sensitive to your curiosity.   Every website you visit has a monthly, weekly, or ten times daily newsletter.   You can save bundles of cash!!  Yes…yes!!!   Tell me of your wondrous price reductions and inventory!!!!! …click!    Tell me more…..click.    Show me the universe!......click.

Second Stage:

  Once you begin to find your way around on line you can start exploring the entertainment and social options this marvelous machine gives you.   Someone from your graduating class might be looking for you….click!   Or you could research your family history back to the cavemen….click!  Don’t you want to see the mug shots of every person ever arrested?.......click.  Oh, my!....a gardening group for women who hate to get their nails dirty…..click.   Here’s your daily motivational quote….your joke of the day…..your recipe of the hour….a makeup tip to make your eyes look bigger…..click, click, click, click!

Final Stage:

 One day you turn on your laptop and realize you can’t distinguish your personal email….i.e. notes from friends and family…..from the junk that you are now forced to scroll through .   You sort by “from”…..you sort by “date”…..but you can’t sort for “what the heck is this for?”.     Every “click” of the mouse previously made on a site you thought you wanted to hear from has now sold your email address to six of his smarmy friends.  And then there are the cookies, the little critters that attach themselves to you and follow you home, leaving a trail of crumbs for the other email cockroaches to follow.  Now, in addition to the “beadwork of the day” newsletter, you are taunted by embarrassing titles on email that promises to increase your “booty” and/or enlarge your penis.  Enough is enough, I have finally reached stage three of computer ownership.   This is the leave me alone stage.

Just last Friday I started my email exfoliating adventure.   I scrolled to the bottom of at least twenty five emails, searching for the carefully concealed “unsubscribe here” places I needed to find.  Going through the process, I was not totally surprised when I received a rash of “are you sure you want to do this?” and “we’re so sorry to see you go!” emails from the “don’t send me any more of your crap” buttons I had just clicked.  Now my mailbox is filled with the breakup  emails of people I’ve notified not to email me anymore…..sigh.

My new routine includes my daily attempt to shed a minimum of twenty five more….hoping to make a dent in the amount of trash that fills my mail box.   In the first stages of computer ownership I must have subscribed to about a half million sites in my innocent embracing of the technology.  I take full responsibility for my own naiveté. 

The good news is,this is actually just the tip of the iceberg.  As I wield the sword of unsubscription I have made a vow to work toward decluttering all aspects of my life.   In fact, I’ve  made it my New Year’s Resolution for 2012.   Yes, it’s early, but I’ve simply gotten a jump start on this enormous task propelled by my success with my 2011 resolution.  Granted it was simply a promise to myself that I wouldn’t go out of the house without eyebrows….but a girls gotta start some place.    Life is good.

The Day the Circus Came to Town

                      This week I recorded a show about elephants on TV.  Intelligent, family oriented creatures that they are, I'd like to share an elephant story with you that wasn't quite so warm and fuzzy.

Early in my radio career I was a copy writer, and that qualified me as "one of the guys".   I played on the station softball team, did remotes and worked promotions with the staff.  For the most part our spouses and kids joined in and it was a great time in our lives.  We were the WMAN-ALLSTARS.

In those days, working in small market radio could shave a lot of things off your bucket list.   That's because you were often asked to do things that were fun for a crowd to watch and dangerous for the person asked to do them.   These requests required you to be (a) young enough and (b) dumb enough to show up and do them......I was both.

That's the day the circus came to town.                     

Our crew had been recruited to be in an elephant 'race' by the circus as part of their advertising plan, so on a Saturday morning Larry and I loaded the kids into the car and headed to the fairgrounds.  We walked around looking for other mustard yellow t-shirts and soon found our group.  Four of us were to race elephants that day, and it's safe to say it was a new experience for all of us.

A tall man who seemed to be in charge led me and the other three disc jockeys around the side of the tent while our families walked on to find the track to watch the race.  As we came around the corner I found myself face to trunk with the biggest animal I had ever seen.  It wore a sad, tired expression and it occasionally pawed the dust with a huge foot and leg that was bigger than my whole body.  I immediately began to second guess my decision, but there wasn't time to do anything but push on. 

"I can do this...I can do this....I can do this"....is the mantra that runs through my head when I am completely out of my comfort zone and hoping for a better outcome than the one that just crossed my mind.  I only start this mantra loop in my thoughts when I think there's a good possibility I am going to die.

The man in charge said some magic words and the huge, dusty beast went to it's knees in what looked like a deep, courteous bow.  A younger man made himself into a human step stool, and the next thing I knew I was up on the elephant's head trying to figure out where to sit.  The man shrieked at me to put my legs behind the elephants ears, and then to hold onto the red leather head harness (which I already had in a death grip).  When I finally got as settled as I was ever going to be, he yelled at the elephant again and the beast rose up into the air with a grace I didn't think possible.   Next thing I know, we are walking to the track for the race.   I'm thinking, "hey, this isn't so bad.  After all....how fast can an elephant run?"

This is an excellent point to give you some very important information that could come in very handy should YOU ever decide to be in an elephant race.   They can actually run....especially when they are being chased by a man wearing a turban, screaming in a foreign language, and wielding a very long metal hook that he doesn't hesitate to use on said animals backside.  My next nugget of information is this....they don't corner worth a darn!   Every time we approached a turn I found myself sliding to one side.   The leg still hooked over the elephants neck would grab on for dear life, the other leg looking for something important to do, but dangling uselessly.   In truth the only thing that kept me from sliding off and being trampled was the leather headdress that I kept my fingers clenched in as I bounced from side to side.  (Mommy!)

The "race" was mercifully short, and I was fortunate enough to lose, which meant I didn't have to race again!  YES!   My competitive spirit had died the second I locked eyes with this huge beast and realized it could reduce me to a greasy spot in the dust if it chose to do so.   I was unashamedly relieved.

The man in charge mumbled the magic words and once again the elephant made a deep bow.  This time I didn't wait for the human step stool.   I slid to the ground and moved away from that creature as if I'd just been informed the detonator on a very large bomb had been set. 

In my abject fear I had clenched the red leather headdress without realizing that the elephant's skin was like sandpaper and it had small, needle like hairs across it's massive head.  During the race my knuckles had been rubbed raw, and I now stood bleeding but blessedly intact as the other racers went on to the second heat.

We finished the day at the circus, and our three kids had a great time.  Larry and I walked along behind them, hand in bleeding hand.   I look back at pictures of that day and remember a wonderful, if terrifying, time with great friends.   I am grateful for the experience, and while I wouldn't care to do it again,  it's all part of why life is good.

When times get tough...the tough go shopping

Men may have the technical world figured out, but they fall short when it comes to understanding the female need to shop.

There are two kinds of excursions a woman makes.   One is a "buying" trip....that is usually inclusive of, but not confined to, essentials like toilet paper and fabric softener.  The second is a "shopping trip".  The two can be combined, but as a rule a "shopping trip" includes a high calorie lunch and much more comfortable shoes than a "buying trip".   Women understand this concept, and it is where the male and female paths diverge.

More often than not when I tell my husband I'm heading to the grocery he will happily hop into the car and ride along.  If, in the middle of the ride, I announce I will also be doing some "shopping" his demeanor changes to the one Molly (the family Yorkie) gets when she realizes she's been lured into the car for a trip to the vet. 

I must admit it.....I like to shop.  There are times when nothing else will do but to head into a nice department store where I can wander through pretty clothes, sparkling costume jewelry,  sampling every new scent at the pretty perfume counters.   And shoes?   I think my Mother must have been frightened by Cinderella when she was pregnant with me, because I am always looking for the perfect shoes.  Nothing perks me up like a little "retail therapy", and I must confess I just don't understand why that isn't true for most males.

Shopping with my husband the conversation seldom changes.   Me:  "Honey, try this sweater on....it would look great on you".....Him:  "I don't need a sweater.   I have a stack of sweaters.".....Me: ".....but it's green".    Or our standard.....Me:  "You need jeans.  Try these on, please???  For me???".....Him (checking the tag)...."They're not Levi's"....end of shopping conversation.

I thought men were hunters, but obviously the thrill of the hunt does not include Ralph Lauren stores.   Women are gatherers, and that is why we need the large size shopping cart.   Nothing is more unfulfilling for both parties than an excursion into a previously unexplored store that features a husband (where's the sporting goods department?) and wife (this place is AWESOME!) mismatch.  He tries to be a good sport, but in truth he only cares about the Ohio State score....while I am developing a muscle cramp from holding an armload of clothes as I wait for a dressing room to open up.  Finally his patience is expended and he just has to get to the radio.  "Take all the time you want, Honey.   I'll be in the car."   Nothing cramps a woman's style like a man waiting in the car.

And so, as the biggest shopping high holidays arrive,  I have words of wisdom for all females who might be too young or too inexperienced  to have figured this out for themselves.  Choose a girl friend who has the stamina  and the shopping gene.....and go Christmas shopping.   Leave your significant other home to eat potato chips and watch NCIS reruns.   You'll both be happier.....life is good.

A gift for the world....

   If I could give our country (the rest of the world may need it as well) a big present it would be the gift of good grammar.  That may seem frivolous to some of you, but I really believe it might help us work through some of our social issues if people could only communicate respectfully, intelligently and easily.   Good grammar promotes civility.

   Home with a day off, I'm cleaning out closets and doing a general "de-junking" around the house after the Thanksgiving holiday.   I have a longstanding habit of tossing my belongings around as if the world were my warehouse.   Then, the morning before our crew arrives for our one o'clock meal, I feign the appearance of neatness by sticking things in every available opening.  The following day the search is on....and I clean out places, drawers and closets looking for the things I salted away the day before.  I'd call it a "ritual", but that would be giving my hoarding tendencies too much credit.

   During this yearly cleaning frenzy I often listen to TV, and this morning my husband had the set in his den tuned into one of the "judge" shows that seem to fill the daytime airwaves.   I could not...and would not....direct you to the program, but I can tell you we are in dire straits if this group parading before the microphones represents our country.

   The slang is bad enough, and I understand it's a generational thing that I don't understand it.  However, the constant banging on my eardrums with the word "like"........."she said, like, I don't know him....and I'm like, hell yeah you do....and she's like".    And why do people with a mic in front of them feel compelled to say, "and, your honor, at that time she hit me in my face.   And at that time I yelled."  And it's all interlaced with, "and I have saw her do it"....and "she done did it".....or "she seen me coming".   (I won't even go into the use of "bitches" as an acceptable description for anyone of either gender)  It is not a grammatical error, but a full on assault of the language.

   This awful television show is a perfect representation of conversations overheard daily.  Our standard of communication has disintegrated to the point that the sound of an average conversation is really quite ugly.  I often leave a public place thinking we sound like a nation of people with low intelligence and even lower standards of behavior. 

   If I had a magic wand I'd wave it and give everyone good vocabularies and an excellent command of the language.   Maybe if we spoke differently to one another we would begin to behave better.  It wouldn't have to sound as if everyone had attended Oxford....but just imagine someone making the ridiculous hand gestures and duck face after saying, "excuse me, but I would like to speak to your brother for just a moment."   Wouldn't happen.

  As our language shrinks to a vocabulary of four letter words, we create hostility simply by speaking.  The words we hear thrown around so easily on television "reality" shows paint an ugly, uninhabitable world.  

   So.....as I look toward Christmas gift giving I wish I could give the gift of language skills to our country.  If we're going to go down the tubes we can at least do it in a civil fashion...."after you....no, please....after you!"

   I know it may not be the biggest thing we face in this country, but how can we solve any problems if we cannot communicate?   If only the mouth worked like an automobile, nothing would happen till the brain was in gear. Unfortunately we're not on level ground any longer, so we are headed downhill at a very fast clip.  I have no solution to offer, only observations.

   One thing I do know.  There are three words that are very hard to screw up.  Use them...live them...believe them.....Life is Good.

Pumpkin pie kickoff

There is something about the night before a big holiday like Thanksgiving that is timeless.  I've experienced this "time bubble" many years now.  Like so many holiday eves before, this evening the oyster dressing is all done, ready to pop into the oven.  The turkey is washed and seasoned and ready for the roaster oven at five am tomorrow.  The house is in pretty good order.   I've put all the leaves in the dining room table, giving it the appearance of an oak airport runway, and it is surrounded by every chair in the house.  Other things that could be done ahead are waiting to be thawed or heated or both....and now I enjoy a cup of coffee, some music and the quiet that will be gone tomorrow for just a little while.

Our family has evolved and changed the way most families do.  Marriages, divorces, deaths and births change the cast of characters from time to time.  I know tomorrow, as I look around me, I will wish I could freeze time and keep everything the way it is....but I also know that isn't possible.

I have so very much to be thankful for.    I thank God for hearing prayers....answered and unanswed.  I realize at moments like these how little control I have had over events in my life...and for that I am grateful.   I will enjoy this quiet time, poised on the edge of yet another holiday season.
                                                     
                                                                   Life is Good

 

   

Why would I DO that?

Writing a blog is cathartic....and invasive.  I started writing this months ago and only put the address out there last week.   I wasn't certain I would ever have the nerve to publish it, so I put the address in my Editor's column in the holiday issue of Heart of Ohio Magazine...and just went with it.

Why is it so easy to write about other people lives and so difficult to write about my own?  I've always been a very private person, so perhaps that is some of it.   I can only liken the feeling of putting this address out there to being a teen aged girl,  sitting in the living room with her parents, who discovers her little brother is about to do a recitation from the diary that he just discovered under her mattress.

Talking with good friends I am always amazed at the varying degrees of self doubt we all experience.  Whether it's putting your thoughts down and allowing people to rummage through them in a blog, serving the first meal to your in laws, or standing up at a neighborhood meeting to express a concern,  we all seem to have an inner voice that whispers all the reasons this is going to turn out to be a disaster.

Years ago I read a book entitled, "The Impostor Syndrome".   The bottom line was that we all share that nasty little voice in our heads that tells us the world is going to find out that we're actually a fraud.  The artist who know he really has no talent, the writer who can't actually write, the cook everyone applauds who really just throws stuff in a pot.  No amount of education or experience can squelch the inner voice that speaks with the full knowledge of our short comings.  I believe that voice may drive some creative people to distraction.  Maybe that's why we see so many actors, artists and musical talents who destroy themselves trying to stop it. 

My only defense against the negative voice in my own head is my belief that the things worth doing are the things that take you out of your comfort zone.   Armed with that hard won understanding, I continue to write.  Doing the best I can, with what I have to work with, and sharing experiences with others is what writing is all about for me.  

Talents come in all shapes and sizes, but each of us has one.   My own talent is the ability to enjoy life.....to feel its texture and listen to its music and laugh at its absurdities.  Life is good.     

Thankful thoughts

November is a busy month for all of us, but especially at our house.   We have four birthdays in addition to a big family Thanksgiving, which amounts to a food orgy for anywhere from twenty to twenty five people.  

Six years ago all those things had to be put on hold because my father was dying.  His last thirteen months of life had been played out in a nursing home, and now there were no more rabbits to pull out of the hat.

I know everyone thinks being in a nursing home is sad, and in a lot of ways it is, but Pop had a good quality of life those last months.  He had the wife he adored there every day, friends from church and some he had worked with visited.  I'm an only child, so my husband and three kids were Pop's family and support group, and we were in and out of there every day as well.

Sunday was a day he looked forward to, because I would stop and get the News Journal and a fresh bunch of flowers and head in to the nursing home almost every Sunday morning.   Pop would sit in his wheelchair, the paper spread out on his bed, and direct me as I arranged the fresh flowers in a vase.  Then every attendant who came in he'd say, "See what my daughter brought me?   She's really my doctor you know.....she takes good care of me."   We had a lot of good, quality time together those last months.  I spent more time and talked more with Dad than I had in my entire adult life. 

My father fought in WW 2....he was wounded eight times, lost in the jungle, and they sent him back home to Kentucky to die at the age of 21.  He fooled them all and lived a long life, but it was a life that was haunted by experiences he never talked about.  In the nursing home he told me about some of those things for the first time, and I felt I came to understand him just a little better.  He had served his country well, but he had gone through hell.  Being the strong man he was he knew if you were marching through hell to keep marching....and he did.

Our family gathered in Dad's private room for Thanksgiving that year.  We brought food and we clung together for support and we waited.....it was all there was to do.   Occasionally he would rally, moments that were precious and over too soon.  I think I will always remember that Thanksgiving as the most important one of my life because it was a family pulling together, supporting one another.   In spite of where we were and what was happening we had a great deal to be thankful for.

Another November has rolled around, and the speed with which the months go by now seems to be in fast forward.  We will be preparing for kids and grandkids and friends to come for the day, cooking enough food to feed a small country and soon kicking a path through shoes left around the family room door. 

I am thankful for my wonderful family, I am thankful for my friends, and I am thankful for memories that make me cry......

The real glamour girls.....

Good, bad or indifferent I think we all have people we remember as being pivotal in our lives.  For me there were two women who are responsible for my love of reading.....and my love of books has been one of the greatest enjoyments and assets in my life.

For starters I owe my love of reading to my second or third grade school teacher, Ms. Hilda Bowman.  She taught at Mifflin Elementary, and  I still have a school picture of her, I thought she was an old lady when I was in her class, but looking back she was actually a young woman.  She always read to the class, and the book that absolutely facinated me was "The Boxcar Children".  Each afternoon she would read us a chapter, and within a few days I was chomping at the bit to finish that book.  I went to the library and got the book and finished it.  Something about the story grabbed and held me, and after that I couldn't wait to find another book to enjoy.....and another.   Ms. Bowman gave me something precious that has remained with me my entire life.

The second woman who really enhanced my love of reading was a Cleveland newscaster, Dorothy Fuldheim.  She is exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up.  I remember watching her on the One O'clock club with Bill Gordon in the summer when I was out of school.   Every Thursday Dorothy would do a book review.  Always beautifully dressed, and often wearing an orchid corsage on her wrist, she would discuss the book of the week.  Even though her reviews were not aimed at the average ten or twelve year old, I often got the book from the library because she had piqued my interest.  I can't believe there were many girls my age looking forward to 'Thursday afternoon book reviews by Dorothy Fuldheim.....but there you are.  When she did interviews on the news I watched with rapt attention.  She met and talked with the most important people of the fifties and sixties, not intimidated by their fame or fawning in her interviews as she dug for the truth.  I thought she was amazing then, and I still do. This was not a woman who wiggled her way into a career....Dorothy Fuldheim was not the short skirted weather girl on the evening news.  A woman with the expression and mane of the Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion that roared in the opening movie credits throughout my youth, Dorothy's career was based upon her wit and intellect.  So, of course, if she said "read this book" I read that book!

Of all the things one can enjoy I consider reading the greatest blessing.  I have traveled the world.....met kings and queens.....flown airplanes and captained submarines.....all through the pages of a book.  I am grateful to these two women for giving me the gift of curiosity and the ability to satisfy it through reading.

I hope my grandchildren are lucky enough to have a Hilda Bowman.....and the country could sure use a strong woman in the spotlight with the strength and intellect of a Dorothy Fuldheim.   I was so fortunate to be in a generation that had an abundance of  interesting role models instead of sour faced runway models.  I am forever in their debt, and I will always try to pay it forward.   Life is good.